The Essendon Football Club has apologised to Andrew Thorburn who was forced from his role as club CEO for the crime of attending an Anglican church.
What a pity it took legal action for one of the country’s most prestigious sporting organisations to agree that an inclusive society should include Christians.
Thorburn’s case made national headlines in October when, just hours after being appointed to run the AFL club, he was pushed to resign because of links to a church.
The Age newspaper outed Thorburn as chairman of a church where, almost a decade earlier, a preacher had expressed views supporting a biblical view of life and sexuality.
This, apparently, made Thorburn unfit to lead an inclusive and diverse sporting club, despite the fact he had not personally expressed any opinion about abortion and despite the fact he had been a champion of LBGTQ rights in his previous role as CEO of the National Australia Bank.
Thorburn launched action against Essendon alleging wrongful termination after they forced him to decide between chairing the board of his local church and the club CEO position.
Yesterday Essendon released a statement saying Thorburn was …
“ … a person of integrity who treats others, whether at work or elsewhere, with dignity and respect”.
The statement continued …
“He has a strong track record of leadership including with respect to diversity and inclusion of LGBTIQ and other minority groups”.
The club agreed to make a donation to an ethics organisation, which would …
“ … prepare an independent paper on how sporting organisations can build inclusive communities recognising freedoms including those relating to race, religion and sexuality”.
I’m not sure why a paper needs to be written in order for the country’s most popular sporting code to know it is wrong to discriminate against Christians.
But here we are.
That Thorburn received an apology is little comfort. He was forced from his job, publicly shamed, and is now on a 12 month break from all work as he recovers from the ordeal.
“Soz”, doesn’t really cut it.
If Thorburn is a person of integrity and if Thorburn has a track record of respecting minority groups, why has Thorburn not been reinstated as club CEO?
Herald-Sun football writer Jon Ralph tweeted:
“Understand Essendon has settled its dispute with Andrew Thorburn, it’s CEO for a day. He will donate any money received to charity. Club can move on finally.”
Club can finally move on?
Wow. Just wow.
Essendon got rid of a Christian and then, belatedly, when threatened with legal action, said ‘oops’.
Essendon trashed a man’s reputation and then, months when he was unemployed and potentially unemployable due to the publicity, decided to admit he was actually an upstanding individual after all.
It’s all good though, because the “club can move on finally”. (Insert massive eye roll about here)
Christians have been warned.
Well said James...as usual!! We all love your comments and directness in these trying times!1
As far as I'm concerned, every member of the Essendon football club should resign in protest at the way this man has been treated. Do they realise it is blight on our Australian Constitution, let alone our democracy and standards for which our forebears fought!!
So let’s work this out we have a corporate who says sorry when legally challenged...No surprise here...this is just further evidence for a soulless organisation..a place which is bereft of any values or professional respect just blindly following with cult-like compliance completely invested in political correctness and arse covering behaviour. Welcome to the new workplace in Australia...the institutions, the corporates, the government run sites all are gone. Most following the KPI of woke and if you identify as a Christian and speak for biblical principles you may find yourself fighting for a job. True Christians will find much persecution in their workplace but that’s ok true Christianity enables us to flourish even when public opinion turns against us.. just like it did with the Roman Empire! The problem is most of the church is not seeing or preaching about these issues so many will be blindsided or caught of guard and this will cause distress to many for many are unprepared!